WOW! What A Night

[BB73]

You live in Cubs Land. You haven't missed anything by not watching in over 100 years.

I haven't personally been watching quite that long. :tongue2:

And I did get to see the White Sox win in 2005.

 

[kinch]

This was great baseball, but it would have been crushing a few years ago.

I watched every Red Sox game, went to games, and went out for every post season game when the finally won with a ton of rabid, devoted fans.

After the Red Sox won the World Series, finally, however, it just became dull. It was like, "okay, we're done here now." The whole joy of following them and watching every move was whether or not they could eventually win it all. Now everyone I know is just like, "yeah, I guess the Red Sox are my favorite team."

Now, meh.

 

[sepia5]

This was great baseball, but it would have been crushing a few years ago.

I watched every Red Sox game, went to games, and went out for every post season game when the finally won with a ton of rabid, devoted fans.

After the Red Sox won the World Series, finally, however, it just became dull. It was like, "okay, we're done here now." The whole joy of following them and watching every move was whether or not they could eventually win it all. Now everyone I know is just like, "yeah, I guess the Red Sox are my favorite team."

Now, meh.

Don't you live in NYC?

 

[Jake]

I haven't personally been watching quite that long. :tongue2:

And I did get to see the White Sox win in 2005.

Was talking yesterday about the Catching Hell show Tuesday night, and how the Cubs fans who - like idiots - tormented/threatened/abused Steve Bartman really got it stuck to them the next 4 years:

2004 - Red Sox (their curse ended, Cubs continued)
2005 - White Sox
2006 - Cardinals (a little salt in the wound)
2007 - Red Sox (again)

 

[TheStoicPaisano]

Tonight made me proud to be a baseball fan. Incredible night with incredible games. Congrats to the Rays and Cardinals for moving on. BUT more importantly thanks to the Yankees, Orioles, and Phillies for playing the game the way its suppposed to be played all the way to the end, regardless of what it means to "YOU."

I think it gets lost sometimes, but seriosly, these guys ALL play for pride, and for Love Of The Game.

Peace

Agreed except for the Yankees. 11 pitchers, including Burnett for one out? Not bringing in A-Rod even for a PH appearance?

 

[kinch]

Don't you live in NYC?

I moved to NYC from Boston in 2001. There happened to be a ton of movers like me. Lots of NYC folks go to Boston University for undergrad, or otherwise come here from Boston.

 

[jlb1705]

Welcome to your new curse, Massholes:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ij0ovv8AUw"]shaunessy - YouTube[/ame]

 

[LoKyBuckeye]

so many different things played into the events of last night... been a great year for the Rays... people always rip on them for not having fans but trust me... we are out here and we love these guys (no homo)

 

[NFBuck]

Carl Crawford.

 

[Wells4Heisman]

Yeah good job Braves. :!

 

[Jake]

Agreed except for the Yankees. 11 pitchers, including Burnett for one out? Not bringing in A-Rod even for a PH appearance?

I hate the Yankees as much as anyone but they owed nothing to Boston last night. Girardi's job was to get his team ready for Friday. They have a lot of older players and it was their prerogative to rest them.

New York beat Tampa 3 of 4 last week. Boston lost 6 of 7 to the Rays this month. How much more help did the Sox expect? Here's an idea, beat the last place Orioles.

 

[Bucklion]

Was talking yesterday about the Catching Hell show Tuesday night, and how the Cubs fans who - like idiots - tormented/threatened/abused Steve Bartman really got it stuck to them the next 4 years:

2004 - Red Sox (their curse ended, Cubs continued)
2005 - White Sox
2006 - Cardinals (a little salt in the wound)
2007 - Red Sox (again)

Not disputing the stuck it to them part, obviously that happened in spades, and I know it's en vogue to hate Cubs fans, but...do you really think that Wrigley is the ONLY ballpark where Bartman would have caught hell that night as the game slipped away? I'm not talking about the stuff that happened in the days and weeks after, that's on Cubs fans, but I can't imagine that if Bartman had done that in Boston or Philly that he would have been treated any differently...and possibly worse...at the park.

 

[sepia5]

Nate Silver breaks down the probability the Red Sox' collapse, both last night and in September:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/bill-buckner-strikes-again/?hp

This lovely little graph displays the likelihood of a postseason including the Rays or the Red Sox as the season progressed:

Here's a nice little summary:

The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.
The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.
The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.
The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.
​

Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.

When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential. . . .

One should also have the license in situations like these to turn to various divine and karmatic explanations. I have a couple of these. . . .

The second explanation involves Mr. Buckner.

On Sept. 4, the day after the Red Sox? playoff probability peaked, H.B.O. aired an episode of ?Curb Your Enthusiasm.? The show is the brainchild of Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld.

In the episode, ?Mister Softee?, Mr. Buckner was featured prominently. Jeered by Red Sox fans everywhere he went, he dropped a baseball autographed by Mookie Wilson out a window. But he restored his reputation after catching a baby dropped from a burning building.

Since the Red Sox? curse already seemed to have been lifted after 2004, Mr. Buckner?s redemption was superfluous: a case of two 180-degree rotations turning the Red Sox? karma all the way back around. From the day that the episode aired, the Red Sox went 6-18.

The program was fiction, of course. But you couldn?t have scripted what happened last night. And Mr. David is a Yankees fan.

 

[Jake]

Not disputing the stuck it to them part, obviously that happened in spades, and I know it's en vogue to hate Cubs fans, but...do you really think that Wrigley is the ONLY ballpark where Bartman would have caught hell that night as the game slipped away? I'm not talking about the stuff that happened in the days and weeks after, that's on Cubs fans, but I can't imagine that if Bartman had done that in Boston or Philly that he would have been treated any differently...and possibly worse...at the park.

No other fan base lives under the spell of a ridiculous curse (since 2004) and blames their team's futility on anything/everyone other than the guys on the field. Beyond the nonsense directed personally at Bartman, some jackass paid $100,000 for the actual ball just so they could blow it up and "end the curse". These fans take delusion to levels most others could never imagine.

Setting all of that aside, and it's a lot to set aside, whether we think someone else would've acted like complete morons doesn't justify anything.

 

[NFBuck]

;]No other fan base lives under the spell of a ridiculous curse (since 2004) and blames their team's futility on anything/everyone other than the guys on the field[/B]. Beyond the nonsense directed personally at Bartman, some jackass paid $100,000 for the actual ball just so they could blow it up and "end the curse". These fans take delusion to levels most others could never imagine.

Setting all of that aside, and it's a lot to set aside, whether we think someone else would've acted like complete morons doesn't justify anything.

Not true. Us Tribe fans have "the Curse of Rocky Colavito". It's very real.